Dentists Who Provided Faulty Evidence In Murder Trial Have Immunity, Federal Court Says

Wrongfully Convicted Man Had Sued Dentists For Damages After Being Exonerated

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A federal appeals court has ruled in favor of two dentists who provided faulty bite mark evidence in a murder trial that sent an innocent Milwaukee man to prison 23 years.

Robert Lee Stinson’s 1985 murder conviction was based largely on bite mark evidence found on the victim’s body. DNA evidence and the confession of the real killer led to Stinson’s exoneration in 2009.

In Stinson’s wrongful conviction claim, Wisconsin Innocence Project lawyers presented testimony from dental experts that refuted the opinions of the two lawyers who had testified at Stinson’s initial trial. After his exoneration, Stinson sued the dental experts who linked his teeth to the bite marks.

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An appeals court has now ruled the dentists have legal immunity because they did not intentionally fabricate the evidence.

The written opinion by Judge Diane Sykes reads: “Arriving at an unreasonable expert opinion may suggest negligence, perhaps even gross negligence, but it does not amount to the intentional fabrication of evidence. A mistake in forensic analysis — even an egregious mistake — is grievous given the stakes in this context, but an expert who renders a mistaken opinion is protected by qualified immunity.”

Innocence Project co-director Keith Findley said the ruling reinforces the need for increasing the compensation the state pays to exonerees. Wisconsin’s current wrongful conviction status allows exonerees to file a claim for $5,000 for each year of wrongful incarceration, with a cap set at $25,000. In Stinson’s case, the Legislature passed a special bill awarding him an additional $90,000 — amounting to $5,000 for each of the 23 years he was in prison.

It’s the only time the Legislature has ever made such an award in a wrongful conviction.

“You just can’t depend on lawsuits to do the work because the standards for getting relief in civil lawsuits like that is so onerous,” said Findley.

The Innocence Project is backing a bill expected to be introduced in the next session that would increase wrongful conviction compensation to $50,000 per year of imprisonment, the level now available for federal inmates who are wrongfully convicted. A similar bill failed to pass in 2011.

The Legislature also failed to pass a bill in 2013 that would have tripled the current compensation to $15,000 per year of wrongful imprisonment.

Stinson’s lawyer said the three-judge panel that dismissed the case overstepped its jurisdiction, and he will likely ask the entire court to review it.

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